Chris Sawyer

Julie and Chris Sawyer

To honor the late Charles Gresham, Trust for Public Land established the Gresham Challenge, with $1 million from his generous estate gift designated to inspire others to give. Keep reading to meet one of the first Legacy Partners to answer this call, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come.

I was founding chair of Trust for Public Land Georgia board in 1991 and have served ever since on that board, now as a lifetime member, including currently on the executive committee. Notably, I served as founding chair of the Chattahoochee Greenway program for 10 years during which time we raised approximately $150 million and acquired around 15,000 acres of land around the river for parks, including around 65 miles of river frontage. I remain involved with the Chattahoochee effort.

In 1992, I was appointed to the national advisory board. In 1994, I was elected to the national governing board, and then in 1996 elected its chair, a position I held until the end of 2003. At the end of 2006, I retired from the board, although I continue to serve as an emeritus member. During my seven-year chairmanship, we acquired just under a million acres of lands for parks at a total value of roughly $2 billion, elected Will Rogers as president, and earned Charity Navigator’s ranking as the top non-profit in America (among other things!). I was the second person, with Martha Wycoff, to receive the Ferguson Award after Doug Ferguson received it himself. Most fun, when I retired as chair, the board designated me with the honorific, “Rex Magnificus.” That was a wonderful evening!

What inspired you to take the Gresham Challenge?
First, I have supported Trust for Public Land annually every year from 1991 through today, as well as many of its specific projects. It has been a wonderful investment with rewards that are too many to count. While those investments, along with the work of the full Trust for Public Land family have brought pleasure and much more to millions throughout America, more narrowly it has also brought much to the Sawyer family in purposeful experiences, terrific and inspiring people, and real joy and satisfaction. So, certainly a significant motivation here is simply to acknowledge our deep indebtedness to Trust for Public Land and all that is has brought to our life. It is also simply to acknowledge that we have found very few investments that are in fact as rewarding, so this is a smart thing to do. I would certainly enthusiastically encourage others to join us, but also with the insight that that stunning economic reward, while very satisfying, is greatly enhanced by also giving your time. After 30 years of doing both, I have absolutely no question about either.

Second, importance of land and the value of access to nature—many, many books have been written on these two topics. Suffice it to say here, that land is the base element for all that we do. How we use it, allocate it, respect or defile it, manage it wisely or not, and what we celebrate or destroy on it, will altogether determine who we are as a civilization and who we are as individual human beings, a fact recreated and altered by each of us, and collectively, every day. As to the value of nature access, it is much more than just beauty, fresh air, exercise, and escape, although it certainly offers all of this at the highest level. Access to nature is perhaps the most important way to discover enough perspective in order to begin to see who we are. It’s easy to convince oneself of how important one is in the everyday world of business, careers, family scheduling, club, pleasures, money, and the like, all very important, and all important to living life. But the overarching perspective becomes skewed if that is all one experiences. Immersing oneself in nature however places one quickly in just the appropriate position. Against it, each of us is simply so small and simple compared to the grandeur and mind-numbing complexity of the natural world, from the rich beauty of the tiniest cells and critters to the overwhelming magnitude of the mountains and the seas and the inspiring gift of the galaxies and stars beyond. As Van Gogh stated, “without stars how can one dream?” And yet many of our children in major cities around the world have never really seen the stars, because they do not have access to light free nature. We are small, and therefore have no right to destroy however the complexity of nature and its relentless sense of incomprehensible but nevertheless apparent order. How does one truly know how to live without knowing this? How can one know without access to nature?

Third, favorite parks and fun memories. Having worked on parks now in over 45 states, I have lots of favorite parks and gratefully many, many fond memories. As I think about this, I keep returning to one story that is perhaps helpful today, given what the land and life abusers seek to do with our public lands. In the mid 1990’s, Charles Kuralt decided to do a story for his popular show on Trust for Public Land—200 plus hours of video were shot for a five-minute CBS story, Trust for Public Land’s first real national exposure. The story aired, and it was, in fact just great—we could not have hoped for more in any way. Towards the end of the piece, they featured this bright and handsome rancher standing on a ridge of the family ranch that his family had enjoyed and worked for five or six generations overlooking the Columbia River, an area where Trust for Public Land has helped to conserve hundreds of thousands of acres to help protect the River and more there. He gently said that he knew that the forefathers of this great nation probably did not intend or want it, intending for land to be privately held, but he had seen the sprawl, the crowded cities, the loss of habitat, and he and his family just decided that it was time to protect some open land for the good of his community. He then went on to speak passionately about how good Trust for Public Land team was, understanding both the natural benefit of what they collectively were achieving as well as how the money should work. He said that they wore green shirts, not just because that was the color of nature, but also was the color of the dollar. We were euphoric. Terrific show, and also a terrific rancher.

The next day our president got a call from a friend in Louisiana who said that the show was brilliant and that he really liked the rancher. He reported that the rancher only got one thing wrong, and that was the intent of the forefathers. He simply stated, “Next time you see that wonderful man, just let him know two words—the Louisiana Purchase.” The next time that someone tells you that our forefathers did not intend for this Nation to have public lands to benefit this nation, which almost all parks are, remind them.

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